August 26, 2003
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1727)
Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256/544-0034)
CONTRACT RELEASE: c03-z
NASA AWARDS CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY FOLLOW-ON CONTRACT
NASA has awarded a contract to the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., to provide science and operational
support for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of the world's most
powerful tools to better understand the structure and evolution of
the universe.
The contract will have a period of performance from August 31, 2003,
through July 31, 2010, with an estimated value of $373 million. It is
a follow-on contract to the existing contract with Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory that has provided science and operations
support to the Observatory since its launch in July 1999. At launch,
the intended mission life was five years.
As a result of Chandra's success, NASA extended the mission from five
to 10 years. The value of the original contract was $289 million. The
follow-on contract with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
will continue through the 10-year mission. The contract type is cost
reimbursement with no fee.
The contract covers mission operations and data analysis, which
includes the observatory operations, science data processing and the
general and guaranteed time observer (astronomer) support. The
observatory operations tasks include monitoring the health and status
of the observatory and developing and up linking the observation
sequences during Chandra's communication coverage periods. The
science data processing tasks include the competitive selection,
planning, and coordination of science observations with the general
observers and processing and delivery of the resulting scientific
data. There are approximately 200 to 250 observing proposals selected
annually out of about 800 submitted, with a total amount of observing
time of about 20 million seconds.
Chandra has exceeded expectations of scientists, giving them unique
insight into phenomena light years away, such as exotic celestial
objects, matter falling into black holes, and stellar explosions.
X-ray astronomy can only be performed from space because Earth's
atmosphere blocks X-rays from reaching the surface. The Chandra
Observatory travels one-third of the way to the moon during its orbit
around the Earth every 64 hours. At its highest point, Chandra's
highly elliptical, or egg-shaped, orbit is 200 times higher than that
of its visible-light-gathering sister, the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the
Chandra program for the Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters,
Washington. Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., formerly TRW,
Inc., was the prime development contractor for the observatory. The
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight
operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.
For information about NASA on the Internet, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
For information about the Chandra X-ray Observatory on the Internet,
visit:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/
and
http://chandra.nasa.gov
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